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  • #3573

    In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      Commercial Spaceline MX757#33, Mars orbit

      Finnley, the board computer of the mothership had started to wake up the suspended animated bodies in preparation for the landing as per its usual instructions.
      The craft had arrived in vicinity of the planet just a day ago (counted in SET, or Standard Earth Time), and was in stationary orbit over the main settlement and de facto capital of Mars.
      Smaller pods would be flown from there to land the various cargo and the travelling guests, as soon as they would have had time to acclimate.

      Everyone was becoming quite excited, and hungry as well, once the initial shock was passed. Finnley’s synthetic voice was as smooth and silky as the modelled butt of her twenty one robotic bodies.

      All of her guests were accounted for. A large number of them were sent by a rich Covenant of Holy Elietics, which hoped to enlighten the natives.
      A second group was sent by a mining corporation for prospecting purposes.
      Finally, travelling in the economy section were a pair of winners from a worldwide raffle that sent people to a promised new life. It was believed to be largely a scam, but the one-trip tickets were valid. That was the only thing that was provided to the winners, the rest was up to them.

      Finnley had been craftily programmed to display a wide range of human emotions, although she didn’t really feel them as human did. If that were the case, she would have logged in her journal her feeling to be in a great hurry to get rid of all the now terribly noisy humanity in her ship.

      #3549
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Bert watched Clove disappear down the hall, and crept out from his hiding place behind the door of the room opposite room 8. He’d positioned himself to get a look at the new guest; something about Prune’s description of him had set of alarm bells in his mind and he wanted to see the new guest for himself.
        Silent as a cat, he crept over and pressed his ear to the strangers door. Nothing but the sounds of cutlery scraping plate. Bert waited.
        Time limped along but Bert stayed put with his ear pressed to the door. Eventually, he heard it. That humming noise. He remembered it, although he didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what to make of it.
        He’d been ten years old when he heard it the first time, ten years old when a dust covered man in a broad brimmed hat had appeared in town. Dang, the guy hadn’t aged in all these years. He was sure it was the same fella, he’d known it the minute he saw him through the crack of the door, but especially now he’d heard that humming.

        #3542
        matermater
        Participant

          Mater:

          I am 73 years old and some think I look pretty good for my age. Not the kids—the kids think I look as old as Methuselah. When I was young my hair was jet black. Now it is white and I wear it in a long braid down my back; it is easy to look after and I certainly don’t trust Dodi to cut it, though she has offered. I wash it once a week and put vinegar in the final rinse to get rid of the yellow tinge. My back is straight, no dowager’s hump like some my age, and I can still touch my toes at a push. I married my childhood sweetheart—the love of my life—in 1958 and he died of sickness, April 12th, 1978. My favourite dish is spaghetti and meatballs. When I was younger, when I lived in Perth, I was a milliner. I don’t make hats now; there is not the same demand out here. And of course there is Fred, my son, who scarpered God-knows-where a year ago.

          It isn’t much to say about a life, but I suspect it is way more than you wanted to know.

          This reminds me; Dodi went to a funeral in Sydney a few months ago. The funeral of a dear school friend who died in a motor vehicle accident. Not her fault, as I understand it. She was driving along, minding her own business, returning home from a quiet night playing trivial pursuits at the local community centre. A teenage driver lost control of her car. She was fine; I mean the other driver was fine, barely a scrape. Dodi’s friend was not so fortunate. At the funeral of her friend—I forget her name—the place was packed.

          At the time, when Dodi recounted the events of the funeral, I started thinking about my own future demise. It may perhaps sound morbid, or vain, but I found myself wondering who might be there to see me off. Other than the family, who would be duty bound to attend, I couldn’t think of many who would care enough to pay their respects—perhaps a few locals there for the supper afterwards and a bit of a chinwag no doubt.

          I am rambling; I have a tendency to do that. I can’t blame it on old age because I have always rambled. The point is, I don’t think I have done much with my life. And this saddens me.

          However, I suspect this is of less interest to you than the ghost I mentioned earlier.

          The idea of a ghost is not a new concept at the Flying Fish Inn. It has been around for as long as we have been here. But it was just a joke—it wasn’t a real ghost, if you see what I mean. Every strange noise or other untoward happening we would blame on “the ghost”. The dilapidated look of the place lent itself very well to having resident ghost, it was almost obligatory, and Fred even had a plan to market our imaginary ghost as a tourist attraction.

          So what changed? Well, I saw him.

          #3524
          prUneprUne
          Participant

            The sound of hurried footsteps drew me out of my homework.

            Mater! Mater!” the twins barged in the private boudoir of Mater, our family matriarch.
            “Bloody hell, girls! Have your mother taught you nothing! Bloody knock before you enter!”
            I could easily picture Mater adjusting her shiny white dentures with a push of the thumb, and looking at the two girls with a affable grin on her powdered peach-smooth face.
            “Isn’t it much better? Now, what is it that requires my immediate attention girls?”
            “There’s a strange man at the door…” Coriander said, breathing heavily.
            “… he says he’s a debt collector and he’s looking for you Mater.” Clove completed the sentence.

            #3497

            “Where’d everyone go?” asked Sanso, laughing loudly and slapping his thigh. It amused him greatly to watch all the dramas and escapades of the fledgling teleporters, but in truth he wasn’t sorry to see them go. He fully expected to bump into them again, somewhere, somewhen, down a tunnel or strung along some thread in another story, woven into another crazy quilt of patchwork tales.
            “I’m going down, old chum,” he turned to Lazuli Galore, who was looking glum. “Down the tunnel under the old temple. See where it takes me. Are you coming?”
            “May as well,” replied Lazuli.
            “Well buck up then, no long faces! Time to rekindle your sense of adventure, be playful my friend! A lightness of step, as we delve down into the depths of the next adventure. Come on!”
            Lazuli made a rude gesture behind Sanso’s back, but he followed him down the old stone steps beneath the temple. Why not?

            #3483
            ÉricÉric
            Keymaster

              Bullet-proofed Summary of the latest instalments of the Abalone adventures

              Most of the key characters find themselves mysteriously drawn to the ancient Temple, a place of power forgotten by most. There, many experience under a form or another the presence of the sphinx / Rene a mysterious presence left as a Guardian of the Temple by the ancient builders of the place.

              • Gwinnie – learning and remembering how to communicate with others, she subtly lead them, via mediations and meditations to the secret location of the Temple. Although some split into their own projections, she manages to go through, accompanied by George, as she was infused with the Island’s energies due to her prolonged stay in the bog. She also grows and blossoms to a woman of her natural age, and later helps reconstruct Abalone with the help of George and Rene, whom she heals.
              • King Artie / George – He remembers his intent and forgotten memories which were repressed and manipulated by the P’hope through his travel following Arona into her adventure. He reacquaints himself with Gwinnie, and together they lead the reborn Island.
              • Irina and Mr R – Initially planning to bring Gwinnie back to Karmalott, her plan changes due to the wilting of the beanstalk. Instead, she and her travelling companions find themselves drawn to the temple by the promise of an escape off the Island, via teleportation stone boxes. Instead, she meets the sphinx / Rene who guides her through her memories. It helps heal her past, and provides her with a plausible disappearance that the Chinese corporation that she escaped from a long time ago with Mr R, would believe. Next, she goes with a more humanoid and self-aware Mr R to Mars in 2121.
              • Arona – She stumbles upon the company of Irina, and recognize Gwinnie as the one she is supposed to deliver secretly to Karmalott. However, the beanstalk’s debacle they experience during a guided meditation puts a stop to her plans, and gives her a new goal. Find the spirit turtle and the mysterious Cup that can promise her to astral.
                After a quest through the undercurrents with Mandrake, and still guided by the sabulmantium, she finally finds the Cup and prepares for her next adventures into the astral.
              • Jeremy / map dancer – He reappears naked from his escape in the midst of Irina’s team with Max his cat. They follow the team to the Temple. Little is known yet of his fate.
              • Cheung Lok (and the Chinese squad) – He escapes the destruction of Gazalbion’s walls where he was detained, and use an elephant to track Sanso, who is actually Lazuli who throws him off track. He ends up teaming up with Berberus, the assassin despatched by the P’hope to track down who he believes is the culprit for the beliefs destruction. Later, he rescues Fanella from an accident of duck hovercraft, and they all enter the Temple on the tracks of the others. Thanks to Rene, Mr R and Irina, he realizes he cannot be really free, and agrees to let go of his memories, his mission and start anew on the new Island. Other members of his squad are offered to be sent back with altered memories of his demise, or to stay back as a teenager on the Island.
              • Jube / The P’hope – After a last ditch effort to rescue the city, he orders its evacuation, through storks, cranes and descent through the beanstalk. He goes his own way, ready to confront the power lurking in the Temple that he avoided carefully and tried to contain many years ago. His fate is unclear but it is hinted that he was offered a similar choice as Cheung Lok, and has accepted to become an adolescent again, forgetting the bad choices he made.
              • Berberus – The assassin dispatches of the management of Gazalbion during his visit there looking for clues as to the disturbances. It only hastens the descent into chaos, while during a stand-off with Sanso, he is disarmed by a tiger slug. His fears get the better of him as he is confronted with them once more inside the temple.
              • Karmalott’s gents – It is believed most managed to escape the crumbling city into a refuge, where they started to rebuild anew, thanks to the leadership of George and Gwinnie.
              • Gazalbion’s gents – formerly dissidents of the P’hope’s order, and later home for refugees of all times and spaces, they also mostly escaped to safety and are in the process of enriching the beliefs blueprints of the Island under the guidance of George and Gwinnie.
              • Fanella (Fanetta) – Ejected brutally off a shapeshifting giant and careless duck Lazuli, she has visions of the sphinx, and seems to find herself deeply attracted to him. It is believed she hasn’t forgotten her friends in time 2020 at the village and visit them from time to time with her new pair of wings that George offered to her.
              • Lazuli, Lisa, Sanso – Little is know of what happened after they reached the tile factory and then the Bay of beliefs.
              • Jack (and the others at the 2020 village) – Little is known of what happened after Jack tried to teleport themselves with an amateur rescue team to the Island that Sanso had disclosed the location previously on a map. It is believed everyone who wanted was allowed to go back to the village or to any other place and time they did fancy.
              • Sha, Glo, Mavis – Believed still under a very long death transition, they project to the Island, where they bump into Fanella and her new duties as a sphinx. She leads them to a new incarnated life of their chosing.
              #3481
              Jib
              Participant

                Second Journey ~ August 24th, 2014

                Duration 24 minutes

                Directions : Meet with your power animal, ask them to lead you to the upper realm to meet with your guide. Ask the name of your guide and what they will be likely helping you with. Ask them for your personal symbol and how you can use it. Then follow your power animal into showing you the potential development for the stories.

                Accounts

                Eric
                My snake animal guide appears very fast, I see its eyes first. It shifts into a powerful cobra, and fans out its hood into multiple heads, like Ananta (Shesha Naga), and says I can call him Nagini (like in Harry Potter, that’s also the playful name I give to the plush snake at our doorsteps).
                It wraps its multiple heads around me like a ball, and we woosh into the ground to what I guess is the underworld, it seems like a long coiled path around a sort of vortex, after a few moments in a sort of crystal cave, I’m a bit skeptical what we’re doing there, I catch a glimpse of a white horse from the back, so I guess Jib’s Conan is checking on us, and restate my intent.
                I go though the light of one of the brightest glowing crystals, and the travel resumes, this time like the giant snake wraps ourselves in coils around a column of rocks, and we climb that high mountain very fast. It reminds me of Mt Meru in Buddhism or the Immortals palace in the Chinese Buddhist tales (like in the 2014 movie The Monkey King).
                The place is like a beautiful platform/palace of giant proportions, with a golden light. When we arrive, the snake becomes much smaller, and golden too, and wraps itself around my left arm. It guides me to explore different places, a temple, a place over the clouds where there are dances, etc. I decide to rest under a tree and meditate and be open to possibilities.
                The snake shifts around in various forms as if to reflect the nature of my mind, a giant parasol, or a stream of many paths at my feet. It connects me to a picture I saw of a Buddhist painting where the mind represented as an elephant is led by the monkey brain around a snake-like path. I realize the person I saw briefly earlier is the guide that helped Sunwukong (the monkey king) and seems to be the guide I’m looking for.
                (I find the name later is Puti or Subhuti).
                When I mentally ask for a name, the name Pachacamac comes strongly. He shows me many things related to my symbol. As a spinning cube with the floating feather in the middle and the arrow pointing towards the heart. The spin of the cube creates illusion within illusion, the arrow wobbles but stays towards the heart.
                He shows me a chasm and how to create a bridge over the clouds, by showing me the mirror image in my heart chakra. The bridge is built inside. At the same time, I was trying to focus on the music to deepen the trance, and realized outside (one storey below) was Jib’s music played on the speakers, aligned with the one playing in the headset, although a few seconds off, the rhythm was perfectly in synch…
                He also shows me another image, of a deep well deep inside the mountain that we can see from above the clouds. The image inside is dark and fluctuates with the water’s surface, and also reflecting quite a small portion of the beautiful landscape around.
                He explains that the well is the world we create, the mind and the perception is the water’s surface. It’s the external world, while the heart is all that we perceive as we discuss.
                There are other things shared at a subjective level.

                Francie
                After I connected with my power animal, we went to the upper world. We went through water to get there until we came to land.
                I asked for my main guide.
                I think I took on the characteristics of my guide. by that I mean I felt myself become a different being, and then switched back and forwards between myself and the other. It was very clear. The other was masculine, strong, very alert, very watchful, powerful.
                I asked for the guide’s name and received the answer, Carlos.
                I asked for the area which the guide would work with me. I have had a sharp pain in my left abdomen under my rib for half an hour. I felt my guide reach in and do something energetically in that area. The pain left and has not returned.
                I asked for a symbol and saw what looked like a key-hole shape.
                There was a key too.
                It was a very particular shape.
                There was a door. And the key hole was up very high in the door.
                I had to reach up high to get to it. And I put the key in.
                I wasn’t sure if those were symbols.
                The key hole and the key were shapes.
                I was tracing them with my hand.

                Jib
                I settle in myself and arrive directly in a kind of lava world. There are stalagmites and magma puddles, it’s very fiery and earthy. Then I call my horse who just nudge my left shoulder, he was already there.
                I ride him first and take time to bond with him. Then ask him to take me to the upper realm to Michel. Without much transition I am there, I feel a definite difference of feeling and texture. I say hi and ask Michel if he can show me the use of my personal symbol or particular aspects to it.
                The he focuses my attention to the octagon and the connection with the number eight. He shows me how it connects with the musical octave and sounds as a resonator. It can also be used like the shamanic drum. The coil inside is connected with the circle, the spiral and the labyrinth. My symbol is a kind of labyrinth with the diamond representing the central room where the graal is, so to speak.
                He shows me other stuff that I don’t recall at the moment.
                When I realize that it will be all, I ask my guide if he can introduce me to another guide that can help me with the use of my symbol. He sends me in a direction that goes up in a cave world. There are faceless figures, I don’t pay much attention to them. When I arrive, the guide sits me on the ground and a journey inside my symbol begins. With the octagon connecting quite strongly with the lava and earth again. I am in a lava world again, which is strange. I ask the guide what is his name and I suddenly understand it is Athumbra the Dreamwalker from whom I’m fragmented.
                He shows me the connection of my symbol to the fire and earth, and the depth of the world. He suggests me that instead of focusing on the shape of the symbol I connect with how the different parts connects together and to other aspects of consciousness, and how they are representative of my own energy personality. Not try to look outside for an answer in a way at the moment.
                So I begin to experience the shapes, and it turns like a clock, take different colors, etc.
                This will be something I’ll have to do again.
                Then I ask my power animal to show me what would be interesting to me to explore in the story now.
                He shows me a nest and I connect it with the stork nests I’ve been talking about in the last comment and that I used in the quote of the week picture. Without consciously connecting the two. I’ve written the comment before making the picture.
                It will have to do with how the nest is comfortable but don’t make you learn much about life and your potentials.
                Then he showed me something related to ants and colonies, that I connected with Mars, the colonies of Mars. There is something about community and social network for me to explore.
                Then I asked him to help me decipher the energy transmission Eric sent to me the other day, and it had something to do with networks again and how we create a space of something through our relationships, the space of love, the space of friendship, and we create fields and connective tissues that we nourish through experience and attention and involvement.
                At some point in the beginning I briefly wondered what was happening with you guys and felt propelled into something like water and impression of struggling with current, there were two moon crescents holding together by their “backs”, and purple or pink colors.

                Tracy
                The Zebra walked towards me across a grassy plain then I circled him, floating, and we went down a slope through the trees, an old road paved with stones. We wound down and came to a great expanse of metallic pink water, like a wise (typo! wide) river.
                There was a guy in much heavy stone coloured rough clothes on with a very old face who didn’t look at me, he was on a raft with a long pole for steering. Asked his name and got Frudo. (was slightly skeptical that I got the name right) The symbol was like a clubs of cards, 3 circles interlocking with an in flow of the stem part. Domain was water, flow and fluidity (and dams, apparently).
                We went down with the raft on the wide pink river, and the pace increased and there were people of all kinds lining both banks, watching. The wide river came to an immensely steep and deep waterfall, but there were pools and much smaller waterfalls on either side of it. All the water was pink.
                We navigated from pool to pool on the right of the waterfall mostly, each pool had people, some of the pools were dammed, and some were more open and easily flowing to the next pool. Some dams were high and some pools had people looking over the edge at the waterfalls below their pools.
                In a pool on the right, a very fat pink baby was sitting in the middle, I picked him up and held him and asked his name and it was Ezekial.
                Then a fly landed on my right shoulder and I looked to the right and saw a scrunched up face of my mother, with a tight smile. My breathing started to get constricted and I saw mustard yellow mangle of tubes like intestines in that pool.
                Then there was a lot of fingers stroking and pulling threads out of the dam around that pool, like pulling soft pink wax. Breathing continued to be restricted, and some becoming vapour or mist stuff that wasn’t very clear or droplets leaping from pool to pool as an alternative route to surface pools and waterfalls….
                Then went down down down into a vast pool of pink water, faster and faster towards a narrow tube at the bottom, and then flipped over onto my back and saw the sun far above and rose slowly floating towards the surface.
                Several times I saw purple and light green.
                The breathing thing was interesting if not so pleasant.
                The personal symbol may be connected to the flow from pool to pool somehow.

                #3475

                Even two weeks after the escape, she still woke up in cold sweats, haunted by nightmares of being chased down narrow lanes, or driving a vehicle that would only go at a snail’s pace as soon as she tried to drive it.

                “Are you alright, dear?”

                The comforting presence of Robert helped sooth her. He brought her a tray with some lemon and cucumber water, knowing it would help with her sore throat. The artificial air of the Mars colony tended to do that.

                “Thank you Robert,… but you shouldn’t have. You’re not a robot any longer.”

                She still couldn’t believe what had happened. Maybe that was the gift of retirement the Management had in store for her all alone. Unexpected gifts, unexpected islands of solitude —even at the closest to Earth in months, Mars was still 122 million miles from her Russian homeland.

                It was still night outside. There, the days were slightly longer than Earth’s by half an hour or so, but she’d adapted to it rather quickly. It was still much better than the torpor on the island where she would loop on her days sometimes without even noticing it.

                “Anything I can do for you dear?” Robert looked appropriately sorry for her, not too much to seem condescending, not to little to seem not caring.

                “Put on some light music will you. The one from Beethoven that puts me in a meditative relaxation…”

                When the deep notes started in the background, she started to relax. Her throat felt fresh and her lungs appreciative of the oxygen produced by the greenhouse plants.
                Although she resisted slightly, inexorably she felt drawn to revisit the memories of the last day on Abalone.

                It always started with the labyrinth, and finding herself alone.

                :fleuron:

                “Mr R? Mr R?” she called. “Gweenie?”

                The labyrinth looked strangely like the laboratory white walls of the Chinese Robot Incorporated Mission Eternal where she used to work as an intern first, then as a head of research for cybernetics advancements. She was quite brilliant for her age, and the prospect of bringing a golden age to mankind was, at the time, quite appealing to her young exalted mind.

                She knew where to go. She had to relive again that day where she’d thrown away all of that for a life in hiding. The mysterious benevolent messages of the Management had started a few weeks prior, leading her to question the motives of her employer, and realizing she’d become quite attached to her creation. The prototype robot from Project R had shown never seen before reactions to stimuli, and a learning curve that was exponential. “R” was meant as Retirement: retirement of the last class of labor workers, of those delicate works that still required a human touch.
                The Management had led her to uncover that under the Corporation’s vision, the prototype would lead humanity to its doom, becoming irrelevant, a flaw in the perfect design of profit they were looking for. So she’d taken the robot, and made a run for it.
                She wouldn’t destroy it. And it seemed the Management had no intention of her to do so. With the Management’s invisible hand, she’d disguised Mr R as a common robot for elites, and led a life posing as an elite with a secret life of a for-hire spy, heist-mastermind, or ghost executioner of similarly exciting prospects.

                So there she was again. The walls stretching to infinity in an endless stream of rooms nested one into the other, the fear of being caught creeping closer and closer.

                “Stop that. Breathe.” she told herself. She was no longer that young innocent scientist. As soon as her fear dissipated, the rooms stream stopped, and everything was back to focus. She walked to the room she remembered clear as day. Mr R was there, still plugged to the mainframe, with a strange black doctor in a white surgical gown and blue mask she didn’t remember was there.

                “Interesting situation you have here.” he greeted her, snapping his gloves to extend his hand to her. “You can call me René, I’m Tahitian.”

                She could feel her lucidity fluctuating and ready to explode in a multiplicity of scenarios, but managed to maintain her focus. She refrained to punch the guy in the face too, and simply took his extended hand with caution.

                “Congratulation.” he said, beaming. “You passed the test.”

                All of a sudden, she was no longer in the same room. She was in the comfortable B&B of 2222. René was in a sofa, comfortably seated, and they were sharing a drink.

                “What have you done with Mr R?” was her first thought.

                “Oh, nothing to worry about, I borrowed it for a while, there is someone else that needed passing through my maze, and he kindly obliged to help. I will show you in a minute. We had a little conversation earlier on, while you were stranded in your past.”
                “How long was I out?” she asked.
                “Oh, time is inconsequential here, but in your terms, a day or two.”
                “Didn’t seem that long…” she mused. “Where have you done with the others?”
                “Don’t worry about them, they are on their own path. Only one should concern you now. A certain Chinese and very persistent man.”
                “Oh, fuck.” was all she said. “I should have guessed, you’re with the Corporation.”
                “Not at all my dear, you can relax. So as I said, we had a little conversation, and you can be proud of you. This robot has broken through, congratulations. You can be very proud of your work.”
                “What do you mean?”
                “He has developed a personality and a consciousness of its own. It’s still budding, but it’s very strong, and he’s quite concerned over your well-being I might add.” he said with a wink.

                Irina was perplexed at the thought, but although it made some sense at a level, her conscious brain was struggling with the implications.

                “Show me what you have to, and release us.” she said to René, getting up from the hypnotizing warmth of the sofa.

                “In a minute” he’d say, “just have a look at the screen, will you.”

                Then, she’d understood. The guy pursuing her, Cheung Lok was there, trapped in his own labyrinth, trying to catch the robot that always eluded him.

                “He would rather die than let the robot go.” she said to René “we could be here for a while”.
                “Not to worry ma chère, his timing has no impact on ours. All of this happens in the now.”
                “So how this plays out usually?”
                “It depends. In this case, all that matters is what happens when he gets the robot.”
                STOP THAT! You can’t let him take it!”
                “Calm down, the robot will be safe.”

                In the next scene, Cheung Lok was securing the robot, who was pleading with him. “Please! I don’t want to become a hairdresser, let go of me!”
                The appeal seemed to have struck a chord, and some memories of Cheung Lok flashed through the screen, and it looked like as if the robot’s struggle mirrored his own to be his own man, free from the expectations of demanding parents, society, Corporation… Their love had been nothing but control, and had put him in chains. He sobbed, wishing for a new life free of these responsibilities.

                :fleuron:

                Irina awoke from the dream again. The last memories were a bit blurry, but still fresh in her mind. René had granted Cheung Lok’s wish. He was sent back to the Island, losing some years in the process, becoming back again a young adult full of unfulfilled desires, and no memory of his previous mission. Before the process happened, he wished for those who were still alive of his platoon to be given the choice to be sent back home with only memories of the robot and himself being destroyed, or to join him on the island, with a fresh future and memories. Surprisingly, most of them chose the first option. Not everyone was ready for a brave choice of facing one’s own desires and power.

                As for her, René had been kind to offer Mr R a humanoid body before sending them through the teleportation boxes to the destination of their choices.
                Mr R had chosen Роберт (Robert) as a name for his new self (she’d been more than relieved he’d avoided René), and they’d agreed to let the boxes find the most beneficial location for them to go to. That’s how they landed in the middle of the central greenhouse of the main colony, in 2121.

                It was fifteen days ago, but still felt like yesterday.

                #3472

                Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of white knuckle hair raising maniac mandarin maneuvers with no respite, not for even a second, the Lazuli duck landed on the beach at the innermost coastline of the Bay and shapeshifted back into his usual human form. As soon as Lisa could straighten out her fingers, seized into a gripping feathers position, she punched Lazuli right in the middle of his joined up long black eyebrow. Then she howled in pain as her tense knuckles met the hard bone of his forehead.
                “You fucking asshole! You jackass show off useless twat!”
                Lazuli looked mildly surprised and asked, “That wasn’t fun?”
                “Flun!! Flinking flool, flu flipped Flanella floff, and flow flea flost fleur!” Lisa was distraught, and with the additional feelings of outrage (feelings are meant to be fleeting, but this one was sticking around) at Lazuli’s reaction, was having difficulty forming words. “I flope flu flan flive with florself, flu fuckflit!!”
                In exasperation Lisa howled, beating her fists upon Lazuli’s chest, then she collapsed to her knees, weeping.
                The intensity of emotion she was projecting attracted Mirabelle and Igor, who made a spontaneous maneuver mid teleport which landed them on the sand beside Lisa.
                Mirabelle retched violently upon landing, while Igor stumbled in haste to evacuate his bowels behind a mangrove tree, both of them giddy and sickened by the abrupt change in direction and the gut wrenching intensity of the situation.
                The unexpected arrivals arrested Lisa’s sobbing mid flow. “Fliraflelle!” she exclaimed, and then added in increasing agitation, “ Oh, for flucks flake! Fly fan’t I fleak flopperly!”
                “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up for five minutes until you’ve calmed down, LisaSanso suggested calmly.
                Lisa took a deep breath and let it out with a full body shudder. “Oh Flanso…”

                “Shhhhh,” he replied gently, “Shhhhh.”

                #3468

                “Fucking hell, THAT is monsoon…” a drenched Cheung Lok said to his unlikely traveling companion.
                It was days they were travelling through the bogs, following an ancient trail of signposts that the hook-legged man seemed to know about.
                The both of them were soaked to the marrow, and every step in the bog became perilous, as with each inch of raising water, there was no telling which hole in the landscape hid a shallow puddle or a deep trench.

                Cheung Lok felt like being back in China, during the rainy season, with the strange and absurd impression that having evoked the notion in the first place was the only explanation for the sudden change of weather. At least that was what the other had explained him, only succeeding in amplifying the event he meant to dissipate.

                How not to focus on rain, when rain is all there is. I bet a hygrometer would tell it’s 100% humid now…

                As soon as the thought was entertained, sure enough there was a funny-shaped hygrometer hanging by a small tree of the mangrove, telling exactly that. 100%

                – “倒霉!” Cheung Lok swore loudly, then got even more enraged when he noticed the Chinese swear word for shit happens “out of luck” meant “mouldy” and was written with the ‘rain’ 雨 radical.

                “You know what you need, a good old tiger slug to suck on your feet, pal. That’s a way to snap out of it.”

                “Well, thanks, but I’ll pass”, snickered Cheung Lok, wondering what flood gates would open if he started to peek into his repressed but genuine desires.

                #3466

                “Dear Kitty, you didn’t think I would miss your birthday for all the world.” Anna Purrna handed out with a sappy smile an awful cupcake topped with a green butter cream that looked like come out of a toothpaste tube days ago. “Happy birthday Terry.”

                She sent an icy glare at the others who took it as a cue to singing “Happy Birthday” in falsetto voices.

                “Good. Now, back to business, chop chop.”

                As soon as she was out of sight, they all looked with commiseration at Terry. Maurana even ventured a whisper “That was humiliating.” Consuela whispered too “Told you, you shouldn’t have accepted the bitch’s friend invitation on Flushbuck. Had to be a trap… Although saying no, would have meant… well, yes too, but no… Well, you get my meaning.”

                The other looked at her with blank stares, stopped in their mopping. They promptly resumed making washing noises to avoid drawing back the attention of the dwarf queen.

                “Girls.” Maurana said “Got nothing to do with being black and all, but I got to tell you this. Ain’t gonna be this bitch that’ll bring back slavery upon us AND child labor to top it. Trust Maurana on that. We got to wake up and strike back. That horrid cupcake was a declaration of war. We need a plan.”
                “Agreed.” the traumatized Terry spoke her first words since the last minutes. “I think we may have to call Sadie for help, she was always the one with those ezapper plans, no?”
                “I had some trenches and attrition warfare in mind, more like, but this plan is good as any, no?” acquiesced Consuela. “Let me make that call, I kept her emergency number next to mum’s”.

                #3464

                As distance grew between the P’hope and the city, the damage to the beanstalk had seemed to diminish. Funny how insignificant it seems when you looked at it from a distance, he thought. Unfortunately storks weren’t strong enough to fly above the clouds, and he had to go through a heavy rain above the Sea of Beliefs. Even if it was over now, his already heavy P’hopal robe was soaked, yet his mount was flapping its wings bravely to fulfill its duty.

                Jube could see the temple ruins. Sandwiched between the coastline and the bog, it was surrounded by wall of mist. Inside, old stones and broken columns were scattered around a lake, a stepped pyramid in its center. It looked like the mist was dissipating following a trail near the south. The P’hope squinted and saw a bright orange spot where it would open. He took his magnifier made of calcite crystals and looked through it. He clenched his teeth. The King was there, two great wings on his back. Spoiled brat, why don’t you never do as you’re told, he thought. He looked at the others and almost fell off the stork when he saw the little green one.

                Despite the change of skin color, he’d recognized her. So, Gwinie was alive. There was no time to lose. He suppressed a strong desire to confront them straight away, it would be counterproductive when he still had time to weave his web. He put the magnifier back in his bag and steered his mount toward the ruins.

                There didn’t seem to be any entrance on the pyramid’s faces, the P’hope tried to make his mount land on one of the step, but the animal didn’t respond to his orders. Instead, it glided over the water toward the top of one of those big columns still standing, missed it, slumped down on a patch of grass, and decided to stay there. Ranting about birds and incompetence, the P’hope managed to extricate himself from the mess of feathers and legs. He sniffed with disgust. With the humidity, a strong smell of wet fowl had impregnated his robe. Feeling stuck and heavy, he considered getting undressed, he still had his silk gown underneath.

                “Happy bird day!” said a cheering voice behind him.
                The P’hope felt a sudden rush of panic, the voice sounded like his aunt Ursula. He looked around, guilt on his face as if caught a hand in his pants. He had forgotten it was his birthday, he had never liked birthdays. Who could possibly know ? It took a moment to his mind to make sense of what he was looking at. It looked like a pink zebra with a melting candle on its forehead, but the form seemed yet uncertain of itself. That was disturbing.

                “I’m Rene, I hope we can be friends,” said the pink zebra. The creature fidgeted as if it had drank too much from the moat. “We can begin the party now, or wait for you friends to arrive. I’m so excited !”
                Jube shuddered, the animal had a crazy spark in his eyes that made him feel uneasy. He looked at the stork which hadn’t moved since the crash landing. No h’ope from Heaven.

                #3458

                Rene has been lonely. He stopped counting the centuries long ago, long after his creators had left Abalone. Long before the first settlers arrived and began to plant seeds of discord. He had been appointed by his creator to be the guardian of the threshold. He had long forgotten what it meant. He only wanted friends.

                When the first humans arrived, it seemed that they could be great friends. But they didn’t see the beauty of the temple, only its ruin. Which was sad, very sad. And so Rene stood alone in the old temple, the new temple, the middle aged temple, depending on the time corridor he took.

                Now, for the first time in eons, people were on their way to the temple. He would meet them with might and glory. He seemed to remember that most humans revered unicorns as symbol of purity and fairy tails, at least that’s what Rene heard from the mind of one of the newcomers. Lost in between aphids, Jack and asses. He didn’t know who was Jack. Anyway, he had chosen his sphinx shape. Rene would be a unicorn.

                #3438

                A man on a donkey making his way through the dust and rubble of the crumbling city elicited no attention, it was a common sight that attracted no attention. Sanso covered his hair and face with a blue shawl, more to keep the acrid cement dust out of his eyes that for purposes of concealment.
                The destruction was appalling, but wonderfully symbolic ~ there were buildings still standing like lone sentinels amid the piles of smashed grey blocks and mangled steel girders, but the huge gaps where the great wall had been allowed a view of the rolling plain beyond. The heat shimmered across the golden dry vegetation, silver grey olive trees gnarled haphazardly on the gentle slopes, and far off a milky haze rose above the distant sea.
                The donkey picked his way nimbly though the wreckage, scurrying figures clutching babies and assorted items rushed towards the holes in the perimeter wall, where the ragtaggle crowds fanned out as they ran through to the other side, as wild shouts of jubilation ~ as well as plaintive cries for loved ones lost in the chaos ~ ricocheted through the gutted buildings.
                The donkey stopped at a site of devastation indistinguishable from all the others, and indicated to Sanso by bucking him off his back that this was the ruined tile factory, and then Lazuli shapeshifted back into his usual human form ~ short but stocky, black haired and brown eyed, with eyebrows that met in the middle ~ for ease of communication.
                “Over there, look!” Lazuli pointed to wisps of dust rising from a depression in the rubble.
                Shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, Sanso could make out four bent figures searching the debris, pulling out stones and tossing them aside, evidently searching for something.
                Fanella! I have come back for you!” Sanso cried, stumbling and banging his shins as he rushed over to her.
                “And I have come for you too!” added Lazuli, following Sanso, and hoping to make a favourable impression on the girl, smitten with her long golden hair, elfin features and slender body.
                “About bloody time, Sanso” said Lisa tartly, easing her aching back into an upright position. “You may as make yourself useful, and help Pseu find the tile she’s looking for and then we can get out of this godforsaken hellhole. Jack will be wondering where we are.”

                #3433

                Cheung Lok felt himself fall suddenly with nothing to hold on to, when the elephant he was riding suddenly shrank to human size knocking him down to the ground, partly unconscious after the event.
                This Sanso, sure is 麻烦 [¹]. I must to start to believe harder in my luck was his thought before he lost consciousness.

                On the other side of Sanso, a strange man with a turban was struggling with a bizarre striped dog-sized sea cucumber with teeth. Meanwhile, his target, Sanso seemed to leave back to the encampment’s ruins with… his elephant turned… something else.

                That was all he could remember when he woke up a few minutes later and wondered what had happened and how Sanso could have slipped away again.
                Noticing how he was tracking a man that seemed to make a point at having no discernible pattern, the realization came in a flash of blinding certainty that Sanso knew probably nothing at all about Irina, and surely didn’t care at all about warning her. In other words, Cheung Lok was on his own, and the painful clarity was soothed in equal measure by the other realization that he could let go of this 王八蛋².

                Looking around, he noticed the guy with the turban still struggle with the appetizing stripped sea cucumber.
                “Hold steady pal, I’ll ezap that bugger.”
                The other who had turned almost purple took a series of short breaths when he was released from the monster. “Thanks mate, those things are my bane.”
                “No need to thank me, I’ll deep-fry it for us later. Care to join?”
                “Hell why not. Name’s Berberus by the way. And you shouldn’t trust elephants here. It is known.”
                “Thanks for the tip, pal. Cheung Lok.”
                “You’re going back after Sanso?”
                “No, it’s pointless, I just happened to find him on my way to a series of turbulences on the island and couldn’t pass the opportunity, but that one is more slippery than a wet snail during monsoon.”
                “What is monsoon?” Berberus asked perplexed by the yellow faced man with the strange accent.
                “Don’t you mind that. Shall we go?”

                ___

                [¹] 麻烦 máfan in Chinese, can be roughly translated as ‘irritating piece of hemp’, meaning being trouble or vexatious —or some may argue, in this case, unbelievably lucky and difficult to keep track of, in a continuous way or any other way.

                [²] 王八蛋 wángbā dàn : “The King’s eighth egg”, a colourful Chinese way of insulting people, meaning roughly “bastard”.

                #3431

                Jeremy’s landing was confusing. He’d been lost in an emptiness —for God’s know how long— where it seemed there was no rule at all. He couldn’t see his body, nor feel it, which was somewhat disturbing for a dancer. He’d tried to speak but there was no mouth to produce sound. He should have been afraid, but there was no body in which to feel fear. Though he could certainly feel the presence of Max. They were kind of merged together, which was a bit confusing as he experienced the desire to lick his fur, stretched his body and curl his tail. The cat seemed content, which also helped Jeremy focus and relax even if there was no body to relax.

                Then life sprang to him like a sausage. The association startled him for a moment, it was part of the minute mental and psychological adjustment to this new environment. His sense of hearing came back first. At first he heard round spitting sounds and red voices. Then it sounded more like human voices.

                “Can’t you give him a blanket, he’s naked. Maybe your cape Arona”, said a woman’s voice.
                “I think I have something in my bag that could suit him”, said a man.
                “What don’t you have in your bag.”

                When his eyes could see, he saw orange strokes in the sky as if it was burning. He suddenly felt nauseous. Yep, no doubt he had reintegrated his body. He sat up straight, and gagged.

                “He’s awake!”

                Jeremy couldn’t decide if he was indeed awake or merely dreaming. The girl who had just talked looked quite green, and an angel was getting clothes out of a leather bag while Max was trying to befriend another cat busy talking with a girl in a cape. That’s when he saw the robot and a blond woman with fizzy hair. The name Irina popped into his head.

                He tried to calm down with the breathing exercises he’d learned in his yoga class. The ruins of what looked like an ancient Mayan pyramid with Greek columns floating in the sky didn’t help.

                “His vitals indicate confusion. Nonetheless, he’s recovering quickly from the transfer, Madam”, said Mr R.

                #3429

                Despite rumours to the contrary, Sanso was not in another story, although, technically it could be said he was in another storey of reality.

                The elephant’s trampoling had come as a surprise, and came as a shock that was welcome.

                For a moment, he was in a dream environment, probably influenced by sea cucumber digestion of his entrails, where a Chinese cat-looking soothsayer was reading him the Yiking. “51, she said, is the AROUSING!”
                She purrsued “The shock of unsettling events brings fear and trembling. Move toward a higher truth and all will be well.
                What the heck does that mean he thought, thinking of his arousing French travelling companion.
                “Stay still, you rascal, and hear me out: The tendency of human beings is to rely on the strategies of the ego: to desire, plot and strive. When we do this, our spiritual development stops, and the Universe must use shocking events to move us back onto the Path. This sign, young man, indicates an IMMEDIATE need for self-examination, self-correction, and a re-devotion to following the path of the Sage.”

                With that being said, she rang her huge bell twice loudly, which awoke Sanso right back where he started, in the midst of people running everywhere at the borders of crumbling Gazalbion.

                He could spot an elephant riding at him, which seemed a nice way to travel, until he realized the man riding it was none other than Cheung Lok.
                As Sanso was ready to make a strategic yet hasty retreat, he noticed another dangerous grim looking man with a hook-leg and a turban was coming at him with a grin that meant business.

                #3394

                King Artie had decided he would be George. That would be his adventurer’s identity, his nom de plume (if he ever gets out of his adventure alive and manages to write novels out of it, that is).

                He’d packed in a hurry, taking advantage of the guards’ shift at midday to disappear from the castle unnoticed.
                The bag full of his stone collection was getting heavy under the sun, and the exertion took his toll and dulled his usually quick reflexes so that he was taken by surprise when the girl grabbed him. A strong woman… Now he was smitten.

                He’d noticed her leaving under the most peculiar of cloaks, taking her at first for a male adventurer —he had assumed being followed by a stray cat meant it was a fish-smelly adventurer too. Her gait sure wasn’t very feminine, but her face was pretty; even prettier when she looked angry was something he would have loved to tell her if she’d given him the chance.

                He chose to ignore her last remark and continue to discreetly follow her. She knew her way around, and seemed headed out of town. At least she was a better bet than being under the thumb of the P’hope’s minions.

                #3380

                “Follow the elephant before it disappears again” suggested Ivan to Lisa and Fanella who were visibly distraught at Sanso’s unexpected disappearance into the depths of the marshy field beneath their feet.
                “That elephant must be connected to some sort of human civilization, elephants don’t parachute on their own,” Ivan deduced, grateful that he had watched so many nature documentaries at the village, and that he could appear knowledgeable to the frightened women.
                “Shouldn’t we look for Sanso?” asked Fanella. “Does that strange letter provide any clues? Has he been pushed through a perforation into the honeycomb? Something to do with the underground faded pale people?”
                “If we find some of the local inhabitants, we can ask them for help. If we start wandering around here in this mist we will surely get lost, or even struck by another falling elephant.”
                “Are we assuming the natives are friendly?” asked Lisa nervously.
                “Yes, at this point, we are” replied Ivan. “Until we find proof indicating otherwise. And we must assume that Sanso can look after himself, and that he will join us later.”
                “The elephant did look friendly” added Fanella. “Look, he keeps looking back to see if we’re following him. Come on!”

                #3377

                “What does it say, Sanso?”
                The four travelers had arrived on the island in patchy swirling fog in a field full of cucumber plants and sundials. The sundial nearest to Sanso had a letter tied to the handle with blue ribbon.
                “If that’s not for me, I don’t know what is,” he snorted, untying the letter as Lisa looked at him in amazement.
                “Really, Sanso, that seems so implausible,” she said.
                “What does it say?”

                bq(Quote).“And we start to hope that if we keep on digging,” Sanso read, “All the way to the core, if we don’t stop, if we perforate the land like a honeycomb, if we make it as flimsy as silk, maybe it will suddenly collapse in on itself. And then, like a tray piled with cups of coffee and cookies that crashes to the floor in a mess of crumbs and glass, it will all mix together.

                The upper part and the lower part will blend. And the rules will change. And we’ll be able to say with a sigh of relief: Here is a piece of sky mixed with a cracked piece of sea; here is Shujaiyeh mixed with Sderot; here is Zeitoun mixed with the Mount of Olives; here is compassion mixed with relief; here is one human being mixed with another. above, and with them build a new land.”

                “Oh my,” said Fanella, “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?”

                “And an entire people will rise to the surface of the earth,” Sanso continued, “ Pale and faded, blinded by the sun that beats down on the land. And we will stand in silence, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the light. And as we stand there in silence, the fear and anxiety will gradually creep into our heart, that while we were finding refuge in subterranean Gaza, the land above took its own life, was left behind and emptied out.”

                “Gorden Bennet,” said Lisa.

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